ASU Student Describes “First Instance Of Real Racism And Just True Hatred I’ve Seen”

On Monday, Democrat lawmakers failed to participate in the Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Committee on Freedom of Expression at Arizona’s Public Universities hearing. The Democrats sent out a press release less than an hour before the hearing was set to begin announcing their boycott.

Democrat Senators Sally Ann Gonzales and Anna Hernandez along with Representatives Lorena Austin and Analise Ortiz were not present to offer their usual defense of the state’s three embattled universities. The Democrat lawmakers also missed searing testimony offered by an Arizona State University student who testified about the “first true hatred” he had ever seen.

The student, who was only referred to as “Zack,” described the threatening behavior he encountered during recent pro-Hamas demonstrations on campus.

“A couple days after the October 7th attack, I noticed on my campus, SJP was organizing, that’s the students for justice in Palestine. They were organizing a protest on the ASU campus, outside Memorial Union. When I saw this, I knew that I wanted to go there. So, I missed out on one class unfortunately,” Zack began with a laugh.

“But I went to this protest to counter-protest because I support Israel. And so, I stood with several pro-Israeli students, and I stood with several Jewish groups on the campus, in support of Israel and exercising our free speech,” said Zack. “But after all this happened, we were kind of sitting in front of Memorial Union on a podium. All the students who were for Palestine started filtering through right by where we were.”

“While they were close – while there were no cameras or anything – they started saying things to us. They started saying, and mostly to the Jewish students, they were saying ‘Hitler should have finished the job,’ ‘gas, the Jews,’ and all these other things. In a couple of instances where they were like putting their fingers over their throats, threatening these students, and I’d never really seen anything like this. This was kind of the first instance of real racism and just true hatred I’ve seen,” said Zack somberly.

“And my biggest problem is that we see this on ASU campuses and the university hasn’t done much about it. We saw recently and a few of my friends sent me videos of what happened at the undergraduate student union when there were rocks thrown at the building over this issue all while this is going on, the University takes stances. They put out press releases that say, you know, this is the view of the University. It’ll be on certain things, such as SEL, LGBTQ, or even Russian and Ukraine. And they’ll put out these press releases and it’s something you really can’t dispute -there’s no open forum,” explained Zack. “There’s no discussion, but with this issue, they have not handled it well. They put out a statement saying we wanna foster open discussion, but it’s very clear to me that it’s open discussion when they choose.”

Zack concluded by telling the lawmakers that he believed the “level of antisemitism and lack of protection for the Jewish students on campus is ridiculous and frightening.”

“Here in America we have a growing problem decades in the making, and it has gotten so bad that it is now visible to every American,” Representative Michael Carbone told the Arizona Daily Independent. “We have a decaying culture and the causes are largely our cultural institutions like films and music and places like our universities where our younger generations are being imprinted by people who are hostile to our country, our values, and our liberties. So you can go to a public university in Arizona and see hate speech and antisemitism all over the place, but try to hold an event and talk about health, wealth and happiness and the professors will get the university to shut it down. This has to change and it has to change now.”

Representative Austin Smith called out the Arizona Board of Regents, who oversee Arizona’s three universities, and the Democrats on the Committee who boycotted Monday’s hearing.

The Democrats decided not to show up today for free speech. pic.twitter.com/v50Viz3XVg

— Rep. Austin Smith (@azaustinsmith) November 27, 2023

Over the years, ASU has become increasingly intolerant of free speech that is conservative in nature, according to Smith and others. So much so that in June, Smith called on the Arizona Board of Regents to investigate allegations that officials at ASU have frequently quashed free speech. Smith’s concerns centered around Lewis’ decision to pull funding and the case of student Tim Tizon, who was arrested and charged “for handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution on campus.”

The committee was formed earlier this year after an ASU benefactor, Tom Lewis, pulled his donation to the ASU-Barrett Center for Personal Development.

Lewis pulled his funding for the ASU-Barrett Center for Personal Development after the executive director of the Center said she was fired because she organized an event featuring Charlie Kirk, Robert Kiyosaki and Dennis Prager.

“After seeing this level of left-wing hostility and activism, I no longer had any confidence in Barrett to adhere to the terms of our gift, and made the decision to terminate our agreement, effective June 30, 2023,” stated Lewis said at the time in a press release. “I regret that this decision was necessary, and hope that Barrett and ASU will take strong action to ensure that free speech will always be protected and that all voices can be heard.”